


all things will unwind

by corvidbones



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (from jon trying to stop himself reading), Cuddling & Snuggling, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, a whole lot of tenderness, mild whump, post episode 160
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-13 18:01:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21498229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corvidbones/pseuds/corvidbones
Summary: As the world churns and twists itself outside, Martin does his best to take care of Jon.(aka, a very soft "oh shit the fear apocalypse has started" h/c fic)
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 37
Kudos: 543





	all things will unwind

**Author's Note:**

> Couldn't resist throwing my hat in the ring and whipping up an "immediately post-160" fic.  
Also, jeez, can't believe I haven't posted anything on here in... four years? whew ':>
> 
> Title is from the song Everything is in Line by My Brightest Diamond.

Jon's fit of laughter cuts itself off abruptly, and the strangled noise that follows is near buried under the still-roaring wind and terrible, joyous howling of the things now crawling across the earth, spreading like ink from a tipped over bottle; a branching stream of deep, ivory black, weakening the paper it's been spilled on until it tears and bleeds through further.

He'd pulled himself away from Martin's grasp, when he looked through the shattered window and _saw_. The sky in all its sickly hues, clouds as dark as the ash of Pompeii, looking fit to spit out a tornado. And the sun. The dulled, glowing fixture which was not, as it became glaringly clear, the same sun the planet had revolved around for an eternity— this one burned with the intensity of its own gaze, a nauseating clarity in the encroaching dark, and Jon knew as soon as he looked up that it would never again set, or blink.

Then the laughing had started, torn from his lungs as a wave of Knowing crashed in and sank him to his knees, a hand held uselessly over his mouth as the fear pushed in on him from _everywhere_, and he struggled to keep it from uprooting him entirely.

Martin's on his knees beside him as soon as that horrible, frantic sound has stopped, which might have taken seconds or minutes but either way it doesn't really _matter_, looping his hands under Jon's armpits and dragging him far enough back from the window that he's no longer at risk of being impaled by the remaining jagged glass. It's not a graceful action by any means, Jon a dead weight under Martin's manhandling, his pupils blown far too wide for liking and the claw marks down his neck dripping little spots of red onto the collar of his sweater.

It's hurts to look at him, feels— weirdly scalding to Martin's eyes, like Jon's putting off some sort of invisible, radiating light — but considering that it hurts to look _anywhere_ right now, he doesn't put much stock in that. Swallows back his own discomfort and takes in Jon's appearance, really takes in all of it, for the first time since he stumbled back to the safe house, slipping in through the open door as it had slammed back and forth in the wind. With no small effort he'd pulled it shut behind him, and the door now sits closed and still (not that it provides any real security, considering the blasted windows).

Jon is pale, shaking with such an intensity that it borders on actual seizing, and his hands lying palm up on the floor beside him are stained crimson at the fingertips, no doubt from… from trying to gouge his own throat, an impossible, desperate hope that he could stop himself from reading. _It wouldn't have worked anyway_, Martin thinks with cold, numb certainty, and then shakes his head to dispel the fog that's already begun creeping in on him.

_Fuck off_, he thinks with as much fire as he can muster, and grabs one of Jon's hands from off the floor. It's limp in his grasp, damp with cooling sweat, and when he looks back at Jon's face he can _see_ the dozen staring pinpricks scattered across his skin, and understands, sharp and sudden, why looking at him feels the same as the all-seeing sky that's pooled into their own outside.

"Jon, listen t-to me," Martin says, voice high and trembling. He takes a breath and commands himself to be steadier, gives Jon's hand a squeeze. "Look at _me_, alright? Please, with every eye you have, or are— are seeing through, right now, Look and see _only me_."

There's nothing but the slight twitch of Jon's fingers, at first, and then his eyes (_all of them_) snap up with such startling ferocity that it makes Martin flinch. It's like his entire being is under a spotlight, being saught and dug through and _seen_ but it's not bad, it's not even uncomfortable, it's just _Jon,_ and Martin could honestly start crying from the relief that breaks through his fear in a wellspring. Jon blinks, and the extra eyes disappear as he attempts to focus.

He seems to come back to himself, a bit, and it's then that Martin realizes there are tears rolling down Jon's face, breath hitching in his chest as he sobs without a single noise coming from his throat.

"_Oh_," Martin says, hushed, and releases Jon's hand to pull him close instead, feeling as Jon tucks his head against Martin's chest and just… curls up there, body shuddering. "You… you can't talk, can you?"

Jon shakes his head, and the "_I'm sorry_" that falls from his mouth after is quiet and hoarse to the point of being inaudible— Martin only catches it because he's leant down to press his cheek against Jon's bedraggled hair, wrapping him up in a firm embrace.

"Shh, don't be. Not your fault," Martin murmurs into his hair, and Jon actually gives a verbal sob at that, the sound weak and cracked but there all the same. Whatever Jonah did to him, it _wrecked_ his voice, and Martin doesn't try to quell the fury that rises up in his chest. It's a better feeling than the fear, at least, and it strikes in him a solid determination; he will trek as far as he needs to across this newly formed hellscape so long as he gets to _kill_ Jonah Magnus at the end of it.

But those thoughts are for later Martin to worry about. _Now_ Martin, the one blatantly trying to ignore the impending apocalypse outside, just wants to hold the man he loves and soothe him as best he can, because the threads holding reality together may have just been pulled apart like taffy but Jon was still alive and aware and to Martin, that meant _everything_.

"I'm going to pick you up, okay? I think the windows in the bedroom might not have broken," Martin says, and though Jon doesn't (_can't_) say anything in reply he offers no resistance as Martin shifts him into a position where he can be lifted, one of his arms pulled around the back of Martin's neck as he stands and carries him off of the hard, glass-dusted floor. Jon's head rests against Martin's shoulder, tears soaking through the fabric of his shirt, and Martin's heart aches with a deep, resounding need for him to be okay.

Martin's assumption is right— the two windows in the small bedroom were spared from whatever sort of explosion destroyed the rest in the living room, and once he's set Jon down on the bed he yanks the curtains closed on both of them with force. The light outside is a shifting amalgamation of night and day, cut through with colors that should have been impossible for the sky to possess, and it filters in through the fabric regardless. As Martin closes the door to the bedroom, he finds that he doesn't _care_, because at least now they can't see the Eye. It's dim and muffled in here, safe for the time being, and considering the chaos happening outside that's more than enough to ask for.

He knows that he should probably be doing... _something_, scrabbling around for supplies to patch up the broken windows with (there are planks of firewood he could nail up, though that wouldn't be very effective against anything trying to _get in_), but he feels so tired, the adrenaline in his veins replaced by worry and exhaustion, and there is some primal part of him that doesn't want to let Jon out of his sight. A part of him that's gripped by the fear that Jon, as weak as he seems, might try and do something rash and self-sacrificially _foolish_, like run. And Martin can't bear the thought of losing him. He _won't_ lose him.

"I'm here. I'm not going anywhere," Martin says, soft, because he needs to hear it just as much as Jon does. Needs to affirm it to himself, a verbal promise. He sits down next to Jon, has barely started reaching for him when Jon all but falls against him. Martin hums at the contact, and wraps both arms around Jon's back before pulling them down to lie across the mattress.

Jon is still shaking, though not as severely as before, and it's a little hard to tell but Martin thinks that the sobbing has stopped. His face is buried against Martin's chest, breathing in sharp, uneven gasps, and he has one hand wrapped tight around Martin's waist, clenching and unclenching his fingers in a kneading sort of motion. Jon had done the same thing a few times before, when Martin held him, gripping onto his forearms and curling his fingers in contentment. It felt nice, then, and Martin liked it; now it was almost desperate, like Jon was trying to tether himself through touch. That was fine. Martin could help with that.

He hugs Jon to him firmly, until their bodies are pressed close— much closer than Martin has dared to before, not wanting to cross any boundaries, but he thinks that this is what Jon needs right now — and just… envelopes him. He tucks his chin against the top of Jon's head, presses a leg up and over Jon's own, cups the back of his head with one hand and pets gentle fingers through his hair. The action draws a small rumble of sound from Jon's throat, and Martin can feel as some of the tension in his body seeps away.

"This is _not _your fault," Martin whispers to him, stroking a hand down his back and along his side. Jon shivers, and shakes his head against Martin's collarbone in silent dismissal, as if it's some silly, improbable idea. "I'm serious, Jon, I know you must think— that you could have stopped it, or… or outsmarted Jonah, somehow, but I don't… that probably wasn't ever possible. And it still doesn't make any of what's happened your fault."

There is so much more he can't find the energy in him to say. _Jonah manipulated you. Hurt you beyond measure. Toyed with all of us, like we're nothing but the mechanisms of some apocalypse-causation machine. Woven threads to be torn apart as soon as they were no longer needed for the whole_.

Martin had only found a single page of Jonah's statement, skimming the paragraphs in horror, and it's probably for the best that the rest of it seems to have been blown to kingdom come; even the small part Martin had read filled him with such a terrible, blinding rage that he'd felt it shake through his bones.

"If I can't convince you of that, _fine_, but… I-I love you, and I will _not_ leave you," Martin says, firming his voice as he does so. He knows where Jon's mind is at, knows all too well the sinking weight of guilt, of being convinced that something is your fault and yours alone. It's not true at all, of course, but the feeling is as easy as tar to get stuck in, and just as hard to pull yourself out of. If both of them are going to make it through this, Jon… he _can't_ carry all that weight on his own. Martin won't let him, if he can help it.

"_I_—" Jon attempts, but his voice breaks off into a choked, pained whimper. Martin shushes him gently, rubbing one hand along the curve of his spine, still smoothing through his hair with the other. Jon uncurls from him then, just enough to place a finger square in the center of Martin's chest, which he taps twice before spelling out, letter by letter: _s.t.i.l.l s.o.r.r.y. w.o.n.t l.e.a.v.e. l.o.v.e y.o.u._

It takes over a full minute for him to get all the words out, and Martin's eyes are burning with tears by the time Jon drops his hand back between the two of them, letting himself be pulled in close. It's… it's something. It's a start.

"I love you," Martin says again, and his voice is a half-sigh, half-sob as he tilts Jon's face up just enough to kiss his forehead, brushing back the long strands of hair tangled there. He sees Jon's eyelids flutter, and close. "_I love you_."

The ceaseless wind outside is buffeting against the house, streaming in through the broken windows. Eventually they're going to have to step out there, pack up as many supplies as possible and try to make their way back to London. How in the _fuck_ they're going to manage that, Martin doesn't know. He doesn't know how much longer they can stay here, how long they'll have to plan, how much time it will take Jon to recover from _being used to start the apocalypse_— or the immediate aftereffects of it, anyway, because even warm and secure and practically flattened into the mattress by Martin's limbs he's still _shaking_.

Martin closes his eyes, momentarily tightens his arms around Jon, and starts making a mental list.

In a handful of minutes, fifteen, twenty, maybe half an hour, Martin is going to unwrap himself from Jon and go heat up some water, steep some nice herbal tea for his throat. He'll grab their first aid kit and clean the scratches on Jon's neck, if they haven't healed already, and at the very least wash off the blood that's dried there. He'll get all of their clothes packed, make note of how much food they have and how long they can ration it for. Maybe he'll have a go at nailing some boards to the windows, or even just ransack the closets for sheets to tie over the frames.

For now, he traces soothing patterns over Jon's frame, and imagines that they're safe.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are adored!
> 
> If you'd like, you can find me on tumblr @corvidbones.


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